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1.66

Robert Evrae

Alternative Start

Feel that being a criminal ruins your Roleplaying experience? Fed up with the boring tutorial quest? This could be the mod for you!

What does the mod do?

This mod makes it so that instead of starting in the Imperial Prison like a common criminal, and having to do the tutorial, you start in your cabin aboard a ship. Having completed your immigration forms (Character Generation), you arrive at the the port of your choice.A variety of options are presented to the player, affecting how much gold you start with, and what items. Whether you want to be a Down-on-his-luck Noble, or a wealthy merchant is up to you. Do you want an easy life with plenty of money, or more of a challenge?As of version 1.1, the number of varieties is such that you will be hard pressed to create two characters the same.Features

Start the game in your cabin aboard a ship. You will be given character creation options including:

- The main quest is started by following up on a dream you have of the Emperor's death. Ignore it if you want.

Fairly important note

You might find that there aren't too many options for evil characters. This is because I wanted the menus to read like immigration forms might. Would you write on immigration forms 'I am a thief and will rob all of your houses', or 'I belong to the dark brotherhood'? But if you read between the lines you will find that evil chracters are covered. What is the difference between not commiting a crime, and not being arrested - you weren't caught! Special Operations should suit stealthy warriors, and if a priest isn't affiliated with the nine, they might be a daedra worshipper.Remember, however evil you are, outwardly you are the perfect citizen - otherwise you'll be arrested!I just hope I've given you enough freedom.

The aim of this mod was to provide choice. You might find some of the options overpowered. Don't use them then. It wasdesigned with role players in mind. Hopefully I've provided enough options to fit almost any backstory you might choose.Even if you are not a role player, it still provides a quick start with numerous options.

Compatibility

What this mod won't work with:- Any Mod which also alters the tutorial quest (eg. other quick start mods)- Any Mod which alters the initial quest (Labelled in the Construction Set as MQ02)- Any Mod which alters the Imperial Sewer immediately before the exit may conflict with this. All I've added is a single rat holding the Amulet of Kings

Other than that, there shouldn't be anything to conflict. Pretty much the only type of mod that would conflict would be another one doing a similar thing (eg. DungeonBGone)

AF's Levelling mod works perfectly with this. I reccomend you equip the Ring of Choice after leaving the ship though. Infact, I would go as far as to reccomend his mod - the two complement each other quite nicely.

MQConsideration works with this mod, as long as you load this mod last. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case, but it is. Not too big a problem at all.Many, many thanks to Holiberri for his extensive testing of this mod, which turned up the load order requiement as well as many other small glitches, and a few ideas which I'll be implementing shortly.

Vim and Vigor now works fine with this mod, mostly due to the efforts of Holliberri!

Known Issues

Loading this Mod while still doing the Tutorial quest could cause problems. DON'T DO IT! It would probably stop many of the events happening, and you would end up getting stuck.

RequirementsThis mod requires the latest Oblivion patch (v1.2) to run properly. Thats simply because I made it using the newest construction set version.Thanks to Reve23 for being very, very persistent in getting the mod to work and discovering this.

If you wish to arrive in Leyawiin you will require OBSE V0014 as well as the "Better Cities LEYAWIIN" mod. If you do not have either of the the mod will run as normal.

Suggestions

I've had pretty good feedback so far, but I would still like your opinions- Are the starting item lists for each character alright?- For those who like to check things out in the CS, are the factions alright?- Is there anything else you want from the mod? If so, say so.

Future Plans

Implement any suggestions I receiveGet enough votes to make it onto the top 100 list :)Clean up this page :)

Version History

Version 1.66 - Holliberri alerted me to a way to fix one of the bugs some people have. It wasn't one I'd noticed, though in hindsight it appears it was affecting me. Anyway, all I had to do was add a single line to turn off a variable I didnt know was activated.

Version 1.64 - Holliberri pointed out an incompatibility with certain mods that alter the levelling and experience system. I have made changes accordingly, which also shifts the spam from the official mods. For those interested in technical details, the CharacterGen quest is set to stage 87, and MQ01 to stage 99. When the bed is activated these are set to 88 and 100 respectively, and then the quests stopped in the next run of the script. The DLC messages are now displayed after you leave the ship as a result of this, and any other mods that check for these quest stages will do the same.

Version 1.63 - Holliberri managed to work out what was causing the incompatibility with Vim and Vigor - one line uneccessary code has been editted out :)

Versions 1.61 & 1.62 - Bug fixes.

Version 1.6- I have added the option of arriving in Leyawiin. This will only work though if you have the "Better Cities LEYAWIIN" or "Better Cities Full" mods, as well as OBSE v0014. If you don't have these, you will notice no difference at all. Nothing gets broken :) I have also fixed a very minor bug I'd introduced, which messed around with the game month.

Version 1.55- I have now now finally fixed the bugs with Jauffre and the main quest. Earlier than I thought too. If you come across a combination of actions that breaks things, please let me know. I think I got them all!Many thanks to Nokturn for bringing this to my attention.

Version 1.5- I have added even more options. Mages can start as experts in daedric worship, or as a necromancer. A mage's robes now reflect their wealth. Labourers can have been farm workers, miners or hunters in their previous life. A noble's starting items depend upon their reason for coming to Tamriel, as well as a couple of other things.

Version 1.33- I have added more options! You are now asked whether you have any diseases. Options include a few not very nice ones, as well "Porphyric Hemophilia" and "Advanced Porphyric Hemophilia". That's right, you can start the gameas a vampire!If you choose "Advanced Porphyric Hemophilia" you will arrive on the docks at night! Slightly more fitting than the harsh glare of the sun, don't you think?

Version 1.30- You no longer get message spam when you disembark from the ship. Your belongings are placed in a sack nearby, and a quest marker points the way. This was long overdue! Sorry about that :p

Version 1.28- Fixed a small bug with Shivering Isles message not showing

Version 1.27- You should now be able to start the main quest after completing the dark brotherhood quests. Just a small fix really.

Version 1.26- It should now be impossible to start the main quest without the amulet of kings. that half line of code wasn't quite all it took!

Version 1.25- It should now be impossible to start the main quest without the amulet of kings. Half a line of code was all that took!- Level boost options removed for streamlining- Valen Dreth should not recognise you. Could someone please, please test this?- Minor script change.- Ship sound effects added

Version 1.21:- Script now adds factions to the player :)- Fixed scripting issue that placed the wrong conditions on equipment allocationMajor thanks to Erwinf for finding the exact locations of my 'mistakes' (read cockups) :)